The operators of the Pacific Coliseum say they are in the early stages of trying to recruit another main tenant, possibly a sports franchise, to replace the Vancouver Giants after the Western Hockey League team announced it is moving to the Langley Events Centre for the coming season.

“Over the long term, what we’re looking for is another main tenant,” said Michael McDaniel, president and CEO of the PNE, last week.

“We are having discussions with a number of groups right now that I can’t really talk about,” he told The Sun in an interview. “We would be looking at all different walks of life from a sports standpoint — and are looking at that. They’re not quick discussions.”

There aren’t many sports franchises seeking a home like the Coliseum, which seats just over 17,000 for hockey, he said. “That’s because leagues look at expansion, they look at contraction, they look at different strategies. But we have put all of the feelers out. We have talked to some more specifically.”

The building could handle a main tenant for “a dozen to 36 game-date schedule and still accentuate some of the business events that are in there,” such as concerts, trade shows, film shoots and other special events, McDaniel said.

The PNE operates the Pacific Coliseum on behalf of the City of Vancouver under a board of directors appointed by city council.

In May, the Giants announced they would be moving to Langley after playing at the Coliseum for the past 15 years.

McDaniel said the Giants operated as part of the PNE’s community amateur sports mandate and didn’t earn — or lose — much money for the PNE. He said the Giants played 36 home dates, but actually required roughly 100 reserved dates per year to accommodate for preparation and scheduling flexibility.

“With the 100 dates that we now have available, we’re obviously trying to put more business into those dates,” he said. “We didn’t know those dates would become available until a couple of months ago, and so we’re working on that. Some of those (events) are very long lead. Some of those are medium, and some of them are short — so we’re working on all three levels.”

He said the PNE has spread the word to all of the various event and concert promoters that the Coliseum is fully open for business.

“I would say that we’re going to probably populate those hundred days with a handful of dates in year one,” he said. “At the same time, and if we were successful at that, we would be financial positive relative to the Giants.”

He said the PNE hopes and expects to earn more money from commercial events than it did when the Giants were the main tenant at the Coliseum.

“That’s not saying we wanted (the Giants) to move,” McDaniel said. “We attempted to do everything we could over many years to make it viable for them, but the reality was it was just a mismatch in terms of the size of the building and what their organization was cycling in the three to four years prior to them moving.”

James Brander, an economist at the UBC Sauder School of Business, said he buys the explanation from the PNE that they will be more profitable without the Giants.

“The Vancouver Giants last year were drawing about 3,000 people per game on average, and obviously (capacity) is a lot bigger than that. It’s not like they generate a lot of revenue with those tickets either. They’re not expensive tickets,” he said.

“If they get one rock concert in there for a night, then that’s worth many games. I would not be at all surprised if they could actually make more money.

“They don’t have to replace all those dates. If they replaced a quarter of those dates, they’d probably be better off.”

The Coliseum opened in 1968 and was built for $6 million. A new scoreboard, lighting, ice plant and other amenities were added as part of a $25-million renovation funded by VANOC for the 2010 Olympics.

Brander said the Coliseum was built during a unique time in the North American sports economy.

“The 1970s was a period when there was quite a lot of expansion of major league sports in North America. A lot of these facilities went up pretty quickly and they weren’t really high quality,” he said. “What’s been going on for the last 10 or 15 years is a lot of them are being replaced by much better facilities — higher-quality facilities that generate a lot more revenue with more luxury boxes.”

The Vancouver Canucks played in the Coliseum from 1970 until 1995 when the NHL team moved downtown to GM Place, now branded as Rogers Arena.

When the Canucks left, so did many of the top concerts and events, McDaniel said. Today, there is a much different event landscape in the city, with more than enough business to go around for the Coliseum and Rogers Arena, he said.

McDaniel wouldn’t estimate how much longer the 48-year-old Coliseum would operate. “We expect it to be in use for many years to come,” he said, noting that other than de-branding the arena from its Giants days, no notable renovations are being planned.

He said the Coliseum will keep all of its hockey boards, ice sheet and scoreboard. “If we had a special game that wanted to come in — whether that was a hockey game, or lacrosse or basketball game — we would just fit the arena out.”

It will also be able to pursue other large-scale sporting events such as the Memorial Cup and World Junior Hockey Championships, he said.

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